Gah! I think my blood pressure just shot off the charts with the idiot on CNN trying to claim that they had great coverage of this over the weekend and that they were getting compliments from people asking why there wasn't more coverage...

Anaxphone:Gah! I think my blood pressure just shot off the charts with the idiot on CNN trying to claim that they had great coverage of this over the weekend and that they were getting compliments from people asking why there wasn't more coverage...

/and I always read low at the doctor's

Seriously between that and Amanpour I wish CNN had a physical body so I could punch it in the nuts.

Anaxphone:Gah! I think my blood pressure just shot off the charts with the idiot on CNN trying to claim that they had great coverage of this over the weekend and that they were getting compliments from people asking why there wasn't more coverage...

To be fair, people that aren't very involved in the Internet probably think this is good coverage. I don't completely trust the Twitter reports, but there's too many pictures to say they aren't at least partially true.

Anaxphone:Gah! I think my blood pressure just shot off the charts with the idiot on CNN trying to claim that they had great coverage of this over the weekend and that they were getting compliments from people asking why there wasn't more coverage...

/and I always read low at the doctor's

I've already e-mailed 3 complaints about their coverage today, so maybe they'll get the point eventually.

coinspinner:Anaxphone: Gah! I think my blood pressure just shot off the charts with the idiot on CNN trying to claim that they had great coverage of this over the weekend and that they were getting compliments from people asking why there wasn't more coverage...

/and I always read low at the doctor's

I've already e-mailed 3 complaints about their coverage today, so maybe they'll get the point eventually.

stickmangrit:quick recap of previous threads for the newcomers(Tats should be along shortly with a timeline and breakdown of actual news):

-Tatsuma has been providing insightful and largely neutral commentary-CanisNoir has been engaging in civil and rational debate-Twitter is now evidently the voice of the revolution-MIg has been trolling for past 3 days. /why yes, the ground does feel a bit cold, why do you ask?

Anti_illuminati:coinspinner: Anaxphone: Gah! I think my blood pressure just shot off the charts with the idiot on CNN trying to claim that they had great coverage of this over the weekend and that they were getting compliments from people asking why there wasn't more coverage...

/and I always read low at the doctor's

I've already e-mailed 3 complaints about their coverage today, so maybe they'll get the point eventually.

This seems to be helping quite a few people, so I'll go ahead and repost it with some adjustments and now with links for those who want additional information. Sorry, this has reached the level of TL;DR but I really am trying to cram the most relevant information and speculation only.

Suppression of Dissent - The Players

Currently, there are two or three groups who are suppressing the students on the ground that you'll read about throughout this thread:

1. The Basij (confirmed)2. Ansar Hizbullah (confirmed, which I will refer to as Ansar)3. Lebanese Hizbullah (unconfirmed but highly probable in the mind of Persians, many different independent reports and video point that wa; I will refer to them as Hizbullah)

- The Basij are your regular paramilitary organization. They are the armed hand of the clerics. The Basij are a legal group, officially a student union, and are legally under direct orders of the Revolutionary Guard. Their main raison d'être is to quell dissent. They are the ones who go and crack skulls, force people to participate in pro-regime demonstrations, and generally try to stop any demonstrations from even starting. They are basically located throughout the country, in every mosque, every university, every social club you can think of. They function in a way very similar to the brown shirts.

They were the ones who first started the crackdown after the election but it wasn't enough. While they are violent and repressive, they are still Persian and attacking fellow citizens. A beating is one thing, mass killings another.

- Another group was working with them, who are even more extreme, is Ansar. There is a lot of cross-membership between the Basij and Ansar, though not all members are members of the other group and vice-versa. The vast majority of Ansar are Persians (either Basij or ex-military), though a lot of Arab recruits come from Lebanon and train with them under supervision of the Revolutionary Guard. They are not a legal group, they are considered pretty much a vigilante group, but they pledge loyalty directly to the Supreme Leader and most people believe that they are under his control. They are currently helping the Basij to control the riots, but due to the fact that they are Persians and in lower numbers than the Basij, they are not that active.

- (the following paragraph includes some speculation based on reports from ground zero) Hizbullah flew in a lot of their members in Iran, most likely a good deal even before the elections in case there were trouble. They are the ones who speak Arabs and are unleashing the biggest level of violence on the Persians so far. Another wave arrived recently and there is chatter that yet another wave of Hizbullah reinforcements are coming in from Lebanon as we speak. According to Iranians on the ground, they are the ones riding motorcycles, beating men women and children indiscriminately and firing live ammunitions at students.

The Lebanese Hizbullah is a direct offshoot (and under direct control) of the Iranian Hizbullah (itself under direct control of the Supreme Leader) and cooperates closely with Ansar though Ansar occupies itself only with Iran's domestic policies, while Hizbullah occupies itself only with Iran's foreign policy unless there is a crisis like right now. However, Hizbullah has been called to stop violent riots in Iran in the past.

What will happen

Unless the army decides to intervene in the favor of the Council and to stop the early beginnings of the new Revolution, Ansar & Hizbullah members will be the ones doing the brunt of the killing and repression with Basij as a support while also protecting government buildings and try to do crowd control. The police seems to have for the most part disbanded in centers like Tehran according to all reports, including international media. If the police decides to come back, they will focus less on protection and crowd control, so the Basij will start to crack more skulls).

Currently, this is what is happening.

Timelinenote: I built this through both articles and twitter feeds, so I do not claim that this is a 100% factually correct representation of reality, but this is the general narrative.

- When the first spontaneous riots erupted, the first wave the Iranian Riot Police was called in, and short after the Basij also took the scene. The RP concentrated mostly around public buildings and streets while the Basij took position around student groups, especiallly universities.

- As things got more out of hand, more and more Basij troops were called in, as the police started dispersing. The riot police are less inclined (or, rather I should say the Basij are more inclined) to use violence so they retreated and leaving the place to the

- With the second wave of Basij also came Ansar Hizbullah members. This is the point where firearms started being used. There are reports of a few murders but it was mostly fired in the air or on walls in order to scare away protesters in University dorms.

- It's around the time of the second wave that the first reports and videos of an important number of non-Persian thugs shouting in Arabic and violently beating people with chains, clubs and electric batons (similar to cattle prods). The end of the second wave came right before the beginning of the current manifestation. Things were getting quieter with only sporadic reports of dissenters being assaulted. Important to note: at this time. the Supreme Leader has authorized these militias to use live ammunition against the crowd if things get out of hand (source: BBC)

- This brings us to the third wave, which just began around 12:30PM for those of us on the East Coast. According to all reports, plainclothes militia have opened fire on civilians protesting peacefully.

Right now, there is chaos in the streets, reports of fighting all over Tehran, plenty of pictures of people shot, some to death. Things are ugly and this is spreading in other cities as well. There is a major crackdown on students, especially those with connections to the outside world going on right now. Some people report that the students are fighting back in some areas. Others report that telephones are being bugged and everyone twittering and sending videos outside of Iran are being rounded up.

Violent and murderous repression has started. At least a dozen people have been killed so far. Things will spiral down fast, and very soon.

Links

For further information on the Basij, Global Security has a good article about the history of the Basij.

CNN has a good article where eyewitnesses describe the current violence unleashed by the Basij here.

Here is another good article from GS again giving more background information on the ruthless Ansar thugs.

I'm sorry, Estee, I really am. But that fact remains that if we intervene, we will only make things much worse for the same people we are rooting for.

I don't like it either, but we can't shake our own bad history.

How? What could we possible fark up more than what is already farked up? They are going to die, G-d forbid, and we're (US) just going to sit back and say "we can't get involved?" It will be our fault if they do die because we chose to do nothing out of fear of what might happen.

EsteeFlwrPot:How? What could we possible fark up more than what is already farked up? They are going to die, G-d forbid, and we're (US) just going to sit back and say "we can't get involved?" It will be our fault if they do die because we chose to do nothing out of fear of what might happen.

... if the US gets involved, not only are people going to keep on dying, but it's also going to stop this revolution in its track and assure that everyone involved at some point will suffer from the crackdown after

EsteeFlwrPot:Anaxphone: EsteeFlwrPot: WHAT THE FARK CAN WE DO SOMETHING YET PLEASE?

I'm sorry, Estee, I really am. But that fact remains that if we intervene, we will only make things much worse for the same people we are rooting for.

I don't like it either, but we can't shake our own bad history.

How? What could we possible fark up more than what is already farked up? They are going to die, G-d forbid, and we're (US) just going to sit back and say "we can't get involved?" It will be our fault if they do die because we chose to do nothing out of fear of what might happen.

EsteeFlwrPot:WHAT THE FARK CAN WE DO SOMETHING YET PLEASE? These people don't have to farking die! I'm taking a break I don't want to start crying at work.

I'm reminded of the same helplessness I felt watching Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans. Not the day of the hurricane, that day I was just watching weather idiots who were literally too stupid to come in from the rain, but in the days following I watched with mounting horror as people died on my television and there was *NOTHING* I could do about it.

Of course, I felt helplessness and despair then. Now I feel helplessness and hope. It's a BIG difference.

EsteeFlwrPot:Anaxphone: EsteeFlwrPot: WHAT THE FARK CAN WE DO SOMETHING YET PLEASE?

I'm sorry, Estee, I really am. But that fact remains that if we intervene, we will only make things much worse for the same people we are rooting for.

I don't like it either, but we can't shake our own bad history.

How? What could we possible fark up more than what is already farked up? They are going to die, G-d forbid, and we're (US) just going to sit back and say "we can't get involved?" It will be our fault if they do die because we chose to do nothing out of fear of what might happen.

i'm sure they still need proxies, so you can look for those. judging from the shiat PK's posting now, quick info distribution would be a definite plus in the coming hours.

if that doesn't float your boat, start writing. start sending emails to the media asking why the hell they're ignoring this. call into some radio shows and start talking about it. our government can't do shiat right now, but we can at least scream loudly enough to get out fellow citizens to possibly remove their heads from their asses long enough to see the world around them.

KaponoFor3:Tats, I just went to lunch -- did I see something that said that protesters captured a building with weapons within the last hour or so?

Yes they did indeed. And CNN is now Pravda, literally.

CNN:It's a good thing it's getting that kind of coverage from the social network media, they are complementing our coverage! You see, they are not doing our job, they are just helping us! Nothing is wrong with our coverage

CNN: We talked to voters in Iran *cue Iranian saying she voted for Ahmadinejad* and Christiane Amanpour, she has confirmed to us that there are two stories and many people say Ahmadinejad won.

CNN: There has been a few questions on Twitters on whether we covered this story enough during the weekend. We did. We covered it every hour on Saturday in one form or another, and we expended our coverage even more on Sunday! News gathering is now collective, and we welcome that.

CNN: We are a serious organization, so we are not reporting rumours. This is why instead we ask officials about what is happening on the ground and the election results.

CNN: I was told that there is as real effort on the part of the Government in order to resolve this election controversy within the framework of the Iranian democratic system

CNN: The Basij probably killed people while they were trying to put down violence from the rioters.

EsteeFlwrPot:They are going to die, G-d forbid, and we're (US) just going to sit back and say "we can't get involved?" It will be our fault if they do die because we chose to do nothing out of fear of what might happen.

No, listen we CANNOT get involved. The only thing that can doom this revolution faster than the US endorsing Mousavi is if Israel does it first.

Tatsuma:... if the US gets involved, not only are people going to keep on dying, but it's also going to stop this revolution in its track and assure that everyone involved at some point will suffer from the crackdown after

There's no way. That would be foreign policy insanity. Obama's seemed cautious on this so far. It's not a happy situation but we have no right to send in the troops.

Thank you for your information on this, Tatsuma. I've disagreed with you on many things but you've been fantastic spreading the word out.

Epiphany:Moussavi asks people to confront military with flowers not guns - we want peace - #Iranelection

No......farking..........way. There's only one way out of this. Violence to violence. You were being peaceful and they shot your asses. You will all be silenced if you don't stand together and fight.

actually if you look back at 79 revolution .. the Iranian people did this back then too. It won over alot of the military ..

its funny, growing up in Iran I remember the movies and the footage shown on TV about the revolution , and how we boasted that we were free...now the same thing is happening, and the bastards that were back then greeted with guns (even though they were carrying flowers), are now greeting the new generation with guns